Master Agent Featured Articles

To showcase its love for the indirect channel, Verizon (News - Alert) Business, a preferred provider of master agent TBI, has completely redesigned its Verizon Indirect Sales Partner (VISP) strategy. Although certain details have yet to be uncovered, Michael Ruhnke, director of sales in the medium business segment for Verizon, shed some light on the restructured program to Channel Partners Online.

Ruhnke stated in a posting, "We will reinforce Verizon's commitment to its partners and to newly recruited partners, as we go to market in 2012," he wrote. Some of changes in the VISP plan are reduced restrictions on segmentation, increased commissions on certain products and services, expansion of the products and services available for partners to sell and incentives that have been created to draw in prospective partners to sell the Terremark portfolio of IT, and security and cloud services, Ruhnke added.

"We stand committed to our indirect channel program to drive sales and revenue in the medium business space," he commented.

As the revamped program will now allow partners to sell within the medium-sized business market, Verizon hopes this will be the boost they need to expand their footprint within this vertical.

Additionally, Ruhnke briefly discussed commissions, revealing that increased compensation will only be in conjunction with IP communications, IT products and security.

For master agents, this program is a great thing as it will help agents to penetrate a different industry. Echoing this notion, Ken Mercer from TBI, a leading master agent recently commented, “In 2012, we are planning to use better business intelligence to foster growth with a possible expansion of other markets.” Mercer added that in the New Year innovative technologies that will affect the master agent industry include the Ethernet which powers fast and reliable transport, and the cloud which will alter the industry overall, and impact the transport of these services and the applications it delivers.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.

Jamie Epstein is a TMCnet Web Editor. Previously she interned at News 12 Long Island as a reporter's assistant. After working as an administrative assistant for a year, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web editor for TMCnet. Jamie grew up on the North Shore of Long Island and holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication with a concentration in broadcasting from Five Towns College. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.